In Like the Rose
by New Game Plus
Summary: AU. Florence can't feel a thing because of a curse in her family. When she makes the mistake of crashing into the new teacher, Mr. Ackerman, and finds that she can feel him, she begins struggling over whether should befriend him or forget about him completely.
1. In Like the Rose

For most teenagers her age, high school can be hell. For some it's because the anxiety starts to kick in- the anxiety that they may do something to draw attention to themselves. For others, it's having to constantly impress a certain someone- be it their mother or a friend.

For Florence Holly Emmerich the thing that makes her high school life hell, is, as she calls it, her "little affliction". But it's much more than that. It's a curse. More accurately, any females born into the Emmerich family cannot feel pain or a person's touch. According to Florence's grandmother, it has been like that for decades. Everyone has their own story on how the curse came to be. Florence believes the one in which her ancestor pissed off a witch who suffered from the same affliction and cursed them. _"That's a long time to hold a grudge"_ she always says.

But she doesn't mind that she can't feel a thing. BUT, what she does mind is people taking advantage of it. People stabbing her with things and not telling her. It's a pain in her arse to find out from her best friend or a teacher that she's gonna have to buy a new sweater because it's now stained in blood.

She isn't the type to take it lying down though. If she catches someone stabbing her with something, she will call them out and then promptly punch them in nose.

There is a way to break the curse however. Someone has to fall in love with the easily angered, foul mouthed, ginger. She believes her chances of that ever happening is less than zero and because of that she's prepared to live with the curse forever. She tries sometimes, to be a different person. To be someone that someone might like, but she hates it. She hates not being herself. If someone does fall in love with her, she wants it to be with her real self. She'd much rather be alone forever than fake it.

She does wonder what things feel like. She can feel emotions, mostly bad ones. Sometimes she'll ask her brother what the softest thing in the world is. He always replies his blanket. When he isn't home she'll go into his room and rub her fingers on it hoping that she might be able to feel it. But she never does, and she will never admit that she's always disappointed when this happens.

_"But I don't mind,"_ she tells herself.

"_I really don't."_

_"I...really...don't mind…"_

She's the worst liar in the world.


	2. Come a Little Closer

She can't believe she's running late again. Her math teacher made it very clear that she'd be in detention for a week if she was.

"It's all your fault," she hisses at her friend, probably her only friend, Jordan Hayes. Her brown eyes dart behind her to make sure the young man is still following her. Sure enough the black haired male jogs behind her, a grin plastered on his face.

Jordan Hayes is the only person she can stand to be around. She holds no romantic connection to him and the same goes for him. She calls him the male version of herself. The young man lives across the street from her. Her parents and his parents have been friends for a long time. He has messy black hair and a serious five o'clock shadow going on. He has bright blue eyes, which most girls often comment on and say "they're beautiful" to which earns only an eye roll. He has an English accent, which people would find enticing, but since most of the words coming out of his mouth are words not meant for virgin ears, they don't.

"I swear the clock said 7:23," he laughs. He doesn't care if he's late to class. In fact, he doesn't care much about anything.

"Ugh, shut up," Florence hisses as she throws open the front doors to the school. She glances over at the clock. "Five minutes" she thinks grabbing onto her backpack straps.

"See you later, Flo," Jordan yells as he dashes down the hallway to her left. She watches him for a moment as the young man declares verbally that anyone in his was is going to get run over and he won't apologize because he gave fair warning.

She snorts at this and then proceeds on her way. She runs down the hallway dodging stragglers and the like. A few teachers tell her to stop running, but the ginger ignores them and carries on.

_"Almost there,"_ she thinks as she rounds the corner.

And suddenly "WHAM".

She's thrown off of her feet and onto her back. Her head hits the floor with a loud crack, but she doesn't feel it. "Jesus fuck! Watch where you're going!" She hisses, slowly sitting up. She touches the back of her head to make sure she's alright. She brings it forward. No blood.

And then she realizes the part where the idiot collided into her is tingling. Her eyes widen, looking over at the person in question.

"God damn brat. Watch your mouth," the person snaps. She watches as he gets to his feet. He's a short young man. He wears a while dress shirt with a green tie along with beige slacks and black dress shoes. He has short black hair and stormy grey eyes.

"Holy shit," she breathes, touching at her chest. She can feel it. She can definitely feel it.

"I said watch your damn mouth," he hisses.

But she isn't paying attention to a single word he's saying. She has to make sure she isn't imagining things. She hopes she isn't imagining things. She gets up quickly, grabbing at his hand.

She isn't imagining this. She can actually feel the warmth from his rough hands.

_"Holy shit."_


	3. Start Something

His name is Levi Ackerman. He's a new teacher to the school. He isn't very polite and will probably end up having multiple complaints filed against him by the end of the day. His friend Erwin Smith, another teacher in the school, had landed him the job. He is gonna try hard to keep it, but it doesn't help that some weird girl has practically tackled him.

The girl has bright orange hair that is thrown into a high ponytail. Some of her hair sticks out from it, particularly her bangs and hair that never wants to cooperate. She wears black glasses over her dark brown eyes. Her face is littered with freckles. She wears a red sweater with the number 36 on the front in white letters and slim blue jeans along with a pair of red converse.

He doesn't understand why the girl is holding his hand. She grips tightly on it, looking at it as if she's never seen another hand before. Finally she looks at him, her expression one of bewilderment.

It's at that moment, Florence realizes she being creepy. She starts to shake his hand trying to hide away all the emotions welling up inside of her.

"Fl-Florence E-Emm… Emmerich," she stammers. _"Shit. I can't even introduce myself properly."_

"Mr. Ackerman," he replies. There is something very off with the red head. He decides to pull his hand away from the girl, who reluctantly releases it. "Now, get to class or you're gonna be late, brat. And watch your language."

Florence doesn't seem to be paying the least bit of attention to him. She rubs her hand with her other as she walks off lost in her own thoughts.

_"What a fucking weird kid,"_ Levi thinks as he dusts himself off and continues on his way to class.

-

Florence spends the time until lunch in a complete daze. She tries hard to get the older male out of her head, but she absolutely cannot. She felt something. She finally felt something. She keeps rubbing her hand hoping that she can still feel it. It's long gone now.

She practically starts screaming at Jordan when he takes a seat next to her during lunch.

"Jordan! Jordan!" She literally jumps out of her seat causing her friend to look over at her. He's never seen her this excited about anything. She reminds him of a little kid excited to open Christmas presents.

"What?"

"I _felt_ something," she whispers loudly.

She now has his full attention. "What?" He thinks maybe her misheard her.

"I felt something!" She laughs, rubbing her hands.

"Like felt felt something or feeeeelt something?" he asks.

"Felt felt something! I felt felt something!" she replies.

Jordan can't believe what he's hearing. His best friend has finally felt something. "What did she feel?" He has to know what the first thing she felt is. "Well, what is it? What did you feel?"

She looks at him, barely able to suppress a grin.

"Another person. I felt another person."


	4. Don't Look Back In Anger

"Well, c'mon! Who is it? Who did you feel?" Jordan asks as his friend begins laughing into her hand. _"Damn she's so happy."_

"His name is Mr. Ackerman," she says smiling from ear to ear. "He's a teacher, I think."

The name doesn't register with Jordan. "Never heard of him before. What does he teach?"

"I…" she stops smiling, "don't know…"

_"Why am I getting all giddy? I don't know a single thing about him. He could be an asshole… Well, more of an asshole than me. He could be married with children. He could be a substitute teacher and I'll never see him again. I'll never feel again."_

Jordan cusses himself mentally for ruining his friend's parade. He wants her to smile again. He's never seen her so excited about anything.

Florence has a sullen look her face now. She stops rubbing her hands and lets out sigh. She puts her elbow on the table and rests her chin in the palm of her hand.

"This is stupid," she grumbles. While she does want to feel again, oh how she wants to feel again, she's realizing what if he's like everyone else? What if he thinks she's a freak?

She shakes her head. _"The hell should I care what anyone thinks about me. Just because I can feel him shouldn't make him special. I need to treat him like everyone else."_

"Forget I mentioned this," she mumbles to her friend. Jordan slips his hand underneath the table and grabs a hold of her own, annoyed that he's the one who ruined her day. She doesn't so much as flinch at his touch, but she's grateful he's always there for her when she needs it most.

Levi is in charge of watching over the kids in the cafeteria during his lunch break. He chews on a sandwich as he sits at a table in the corner. Occasionally he looks up, making sure the dumb brats haven't started World War III.

Eventually he starts to look over some lesson plans when he notices some kids throwing paper balls at something. He stands up a bit to see who they're throwing it at.

And sure enough, he recognizes the person in question. _"It's that creepy brat from before."_ He finds it weird that she doesn't seem to be acknowledging them since she has a foul mouth. The boy next to her doesn't seem to realize it either. He realizes that the target isn't the boy, but the girl. _"What was her name again?"_

He notices the girl looks like the world has ended for her. He also notices that she's holding the male's hand. The male says something to her which only earns a sad smile. He wonders briefly what's up with that.

Then, a paper ball hits her cheek. It bounces off and onto the table. She doesn't seem to register it until she's actually staring at it. The boy says something to her as he picks up the paper ball and she lets go of his hand.

The once sullen expression is now replaced by one of anger. She gets to her feet snatching the paper ball from her friend.

Her friend mouths the words "well shit".

"You think this shit is funny?!" She screams over her talking peers. Everybody quiets down at the sound of her outburst. All eyes are now on her. Her friend is seen pulling paper from her hair. "Who did it? Which one of you pansy ass mother fuckers did it?"

No one replies to her question.

"What? Too much of a fucking bitch to admit that you did it?" The girl huffs.

"It's a joke, gosh, calm down," someone says.

"Wait. Wait. Wait. Did I just hear you correctly?" She tilts her head to the side, looking directly over at the person who had the audacity to reply. "It's a fucking joke to you? How do you fucking like it!?" She grabs the paper balls from her friend and begins chucking them at the person. "Huh, you worthless piece of shit!? How do you like it?! Speak up! I can't hear you!"

"At least I can-" the male students says something but the bell ringing cuts him off. While he may not hear it, the girl does and the next thing Levi knows, the girl is charging at him.

One the guys friends tries to block her way, but she punches him where it hurts before he can properly react. She pushes him off to the side. She grabs a hold of the boy's collar, who punches her in the neck. She doesn't flinch, only throwing him to the floor. She steps on his chest and mouths something to him before spitting in his face. Her friend whistles behind her, a slight grin on his face.

"Aren't you going to do something?" A female student asks Levi.

Levi starts to say the little shit kind of deserves it, but remembers he's a teacher and he's supposed to stop things like this. He approaches the red head from behind. She's taken to throwing paper balls at the boy's face as he struggles to get from underneath her foot.

Her friend spots him approaching. "Flo, that's enough. Teacher incoming." The anger on her face lessens as she removes her foot from the boys' chest.

"Fucking scum," she hisses, "do it again and I swear I will break your _fucking_ hand."

The boy calls her a freak as he gets to his feet.

"Hey," Levi says, "watch your damn mouth."

Florence's eyes widen, recognizing the speaker. She spins around on her heels, face paling as her eyes land on Mr. Ackerman. She looks over at Jordan and nods. But Jordan already knows from the girl's reaction that this is the guy she was telling him about earlier.

"You know all of you are in trouble, right?" Levi says. The red haired girl tenses up. He notices her trying to distance herself from him.

"Good! She should be!" the boy Florence spits on says.

"Shut up, you piece of shit," Florence snaps, the angry look returning to her face once more. She starts to advance on the male ready to punch the daylights out of him.

Levi reaches his arm out in an attempt to stop the girl.

The angry look disappears from her face in a matter of seconds, replaced by one of fear.

"Don't touch me!" she yells, scrambling to the side before he can grab her.

"She'll go willingly to see the head honcho," Jordan jumps in, grabbing her by the shoulders and escorting her out of the room before the teacher can protest.

"That was him, wasn't it?" He hears her friend say.

"Y-Yeah," she replies with a nod of her head. He sees her rub her hand. She looks over her shoulder at Levi, quickly averting her eyes when she sees him staring at her.

A slight grin tugs at Levi's lips.

_"Interesting."_

* * *

_**NG+:** Thank you very much for reading!_


	5. A Rush of Blood to the Head

It's not surprising to Florence that she ends up getting suspended from school for a week. It also comes as no surprise to her that the kids she assaulted end up with a day of in school suspension. She forces herself not to cuss out the principal and accept her sentence.

_"Bitch,"_ Florence thinks as the principal tells her she needs to learn to control her temper. She almost slips up and tells her to fuck off and stop playing favorites, but she bites her lip to prevent herself from doing so. She gives a half-assed nod in response.

When she's finally done sucking up to the principal, a security guard leads her out into the hallway to a small area with chairs by the school's front doors. She wishes Jordan hadn't been whisked away by a security guard after they made it to the main office. She wishes he could cheer her up, but no. She waits for her mother to pick her up, struggling with her anger.

An image of Mr. Ackerman appears in her head. She quickly shakes her head trying to dispel even the simplest thought of him.

It doesn't work.

Oh how she desperately wants to feel again, but at the same time, she's afraid. How can she feel him? Why is he special? No one ever told her about this. What if he's evil or something along the lines of evil?

While she's lost in thought the security guard tells her to behave while he goes off and grabs a cup of coffee. She pays him no attention.

She balls her hands up into fists. _"Forget about him! Forget about him!"_ She yells at herself mentally. He probably thinks of her as some kind of freak with the way she reacted. _"He's probably laughing with those asshole right now."_

"Quit looking so damn gloomy, Freckles," she hears a voice say. It takes her a moment to realize who the voice belongs to. She immediately shoots out of her seat, spinning around to face the speaker.

Mr. Ackerman stands there, holding a textbook in his hand along with a cup of coffee.

Florence can't help but hide her fear of the male with anger. "The hell do you want?" She hisses, stepping to her left.

"Just happened to be coming this way," he says noticing her distancing herself from him. He had indeed happen to be coming this way to go out and smoke a cigarette. It's pure chance that he comes across the one person he wants to see. "Is that how you usually greet someone?"

"Yes," she replies, "now move the hell along. I'm not in a good mood."

"I wouldn't be either after getting suspended," he smirks. She practically clung to his hand when they first met, so why is she so afraid of him now? _"Maybe she likes being difficult?"_

"G-Go away," She stammers.

"Can't leave you unsupervised, especially since you might go and hunt down those brats for revenge," Levi shrugs, plopping down in a nearby seat.

Florence eyes him wearily, taking a seat as far away from him as possible. Her eyebrows furrow as she watches him out of the corner of her eyes.

"Got a staring problem, freckles?" he asks staring straight ahead as he takes a sip of his coffee.

"Shut up," she grumbles, turning her head away from him and crossing her arms. "Go do whatever you were gonna do before and leave me alone."

"Well, I am doing part of what I wanted to do. Are you?" He asks. How come she's so hostile to him now? Honestly, he wouldn't have given her a second thought and would've just kept her filed under creepy kids, but the way she had reacted to him both the first and second time made him curious. Levi hates when he's curious.

"Yes, I am. Now go do something else," she replies, still facing the other way. She grumbles out a series of profanities.

He puts his coffee cup and text book on the chair beside him. He watches her back with his grey eyes making sure she won't turn and look at him any time soon. He gets up from his seat, being as quiet as possible. He goes closer and closer and closer until he's finally within in arms reach. She doesn't notice as she's still fuming in her spot.

And he brushes his fingers against her cheek.

Florence lets out a panicked scream as she scrambles out of her seat. Her cheeks rival that of a tomato. She holds her cheek with one hand, the other clinging onto her jacket. The expression on her face is a mixture of, anger, embarrassment, and fear, but mostly anger.

"What the hell are you doing!?" she screams. Her mind begins to race, mostly with thoughts of how nice it is to feel.

"You had something on your cheek," he shrugs, going back to his spot. He likes how her face is lit with embarrassment, he won't lie. Her reaction has made him much more curious about her.

The red head looks at the ground tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. She has no idea what she should do. She's so confused. Part of her wants to grab onto him and hold to him all day. The other part of her wants to punch him in the jaw.

Florence Holly Emmerich almost never cries.

_Almost._


	6. So Sweet with a Mean Streak

Much to Florence's dismay, a week passes by rather quickly for her. She's been out of it since her meeting with Mr. Ackerman. She spends most of her time sleeping or playing games- doing pretty much anything to keep her mind off of him. She doesn't even tell Jordan what happened. Of course, he knows something is up, because he is her best friend after all.

The morning of the day she has to go back to school has the young girl lost in thought. How is she going to face that nosey teacher after he saw her cry? The thought causes her to become pale. She's absolutely mortified that he saw her crying.

_"The hell are you crying for?" he had asked to which she promptly picked up a small garbage can and chucked it at him out of embarrassment and rage.  
_  
She cringes as she thinks about how she'd run off all teary-eyed after assaulting a teacher like some stupid girl being rejected. He obviously hasn't told anyone since no one has contacted her parents, which confuses her even more.

"Earth to Flo. I repeat, Earth to Flo," Jordan says, waving his hand in front of the girl.

Florence jumps a little, startled. She looks over at her friend. "Huh?"

"Are you sure you're okay? I mean, you've been spacing out and jazz since your suspension. Wait. Don't tell me the Queen B put the fear of Arceus in you," he says.

"W-what? No. She's an idiot. I never even listen to what she's saying," she says, moving her bangs out of her face. "I've just been...thinking about stuff."

"About that Ackerman guy?" he asks.

She nods her head. "What am I gonna do? He's like fucking kryptonite to me."

Jordan rubs his chin. "Well... why not try to be his friend?"

This provokes a glare from his friend. "And why the hell would I do that?"

"Well, I mean, he's probably going to try to talk to you more since the way you reacted at lunch. I mean, I would if some girl freaked out on me," Jordan says.

While he doesn't tell Florence and has no intentions of doing so, Jordan had started to talk to the teacher since her absence. At first it had been pure curiosity, but the older man had started to grow on him. It was obvious how the teacher would bring her up in conversation casually that he wanted to know more about her. The two seemed like they would get along pretty well.

"B-But..." she grumbles. _"I threw a fucking trash can at him."_ She doesn't tell him that, of course.

"Come on. What's the worst that can happen?" Jordan says.

"He could touch me again," she says, her hand holding onto her cheek. "_Or I throw another trash can at him_."

"Well, yeah, there's that. I mean, just... be cool. Treat him like you treat... everyone else?" He shrugs again.

"I treat everyone else like shit."

"Touché. Treat him like you'd treat me... but way less."

"So... like garbage?"

"A little higher, Flo. A little higher."

-

Florence decides to take a different path to her first period class. She knows Jordan means well, but she can't muster up the courage to try and be friends with the older male. After all, she did attack him.

"Hey, Freckles," she hears his voice as she walks up the steps to the second floor. Instead of turning around to face him, she bolts up the steps in an attempt to get away from him.

"_Nope. Nope. Nope,_" are the only words that go through her head as she flees to her first period class.

While he doesn't visibly show it, Levi is annoyed. "Dammit, Freckles." He's almost tempted to chase after her, but decides against it. He figures he'll see her during lunch since Jordan is there.

Of course when lunch does finally roll around, the young girl tells her friend that she's going to the library to catch up on the work she's missed. Jordan whines, naturally, telling her that he doesn't want to be in the cafeteria alone and offers to help her with her work as long as she doesn't abandon him.

She reluctantly agrees and is immediately on guard for Mr. Ackerman as she sits down at their table. She doesn't see him anywhere, only spotting the little shits that she attacked. They catch her staring at them, and immediately avert their eyes elsewhere. She finds that weird, but dismisses it.

"_Maybe he's not coming?_" she thinks, relaxing a bit. She takes one more look around, still not seeing him. She sighs with relief and begins taking out her books.

"Okay, you do math, I'll do history," she says, sliding her work to her friend.

"Can't I do history?" Jordan whines.

"No, shut up," she says, opening her history book.

Jordan rolls his eyes, before looking over the math problems. "I hate math."

A little bit into the period, Levi enters the room. He anticipated that Florence would leave the cafeteria if she saw him so he had waited a bit so she would let her guard down. He sees her and Jordan working on what looks like homework. Jordan has a look of "_what the hell is this_" while Florence has "_easy peasey_" written on her face.

He's still annoyed from earlier at her for running away from him. All he wants to do is have one conversation with her, but obviously she doesn't. Of course, that's not going to stop him.

He walks up to their table and puts his coffee cup and lesson plan on the table and takes a seat next to Florence. Jordan notices immediately.

Still staring at her book, Florence starts to say, "yo, asshole, find another pl-" but cuts herself off once her eyes land on the teacher. "_Fuck._" She scoots all the way to the end of her bench, eyebrows furrowed. She clenches tightly onto her pencil, which starts to snap.

He doesn't even look at her, knowing that if he does she might run off again or possibly assault him. "Hey, Freckles, Jack," Levi says, opening up his lesson plan.

"It's Jordan, shorty. Jorh- dahn," her friend protests. Levi's eye twitches at the "shorty" comment.

"Don't you have other things to do than harass me?" Florence asks.

"Mmm... Not really. There are no other tables free anyway," he replies.

"Not my problem," she says.

No one says anything for the longest time.

Florence deals with her inner crisis during the silence. Jordan said to be friendly to Levi. She's no good at being friendly. She's barely even friendly to Jordan.

"_Come on, Flo! Be friendly!_"

Florence begins thinking of friendly things she can say to the male. Of course, when she actually manages to voice one of them, she finds herself stuttering it out.

"S-S-sorry I t-th-threw that t-trash c-can at... you."

"What trash can?"

She swears she sees a smug grin on the teacher's face, before he takes a sip of his coffee, but it disappears so quickly, she figures she must've imagined it.

"Never mind."


End file.
